Software Engineer, Platform
- Salary
- $208,000 - $312,000
- Level
- Mid
- Work type
- Hybrid · San Francisco
Not stated in the posting: visa.
Open. First seen 23 September 2026.
About the role
Vercel's standard text
About Vercel:
Vercel is the agentic infrastructure company, freeing people and agents to ship what's next. For more than a decade we've helped builders move from idea to production with speed, security, and exceptional developer experience.
Now we're scaling our products for both agents and people to ship and run software, built in the open and trusted by OpenAI, PayPal, Ramp, Supreme, and millions of developers worldwide.
About the role:
We are looking for a Software Engineer to join our Platform team. You will build the observability systems that give Vercel visibility into how we build, ship, and operate our systems. Core Platform owns Vercel’s reliability, resilience, and engineering velocity.
We’re looking for engineers to create observability for everything from cost attribution to deployment velocity, alongside the logs, metrics, and traces necessary to optimize how Vercel builds its systems. This is a role with a wide breadth where we quickly develop critical systems and improve the entire Vercel code base. You will report to Eric Larson, Engineering Manager, Platform and will be located onsite, hybrid, or remote.
If you’re based within a pre-determined commuting distance of one of our offices (SF, NY, London, or Berlin), the role includes in-office anchor days on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday, even if the role is listed as remote. For location-specific details, please connect with our recruiting team.
What you will do:
- Design and build high-scale, internal observability systems (metrics, logs, and traces) that give engineering and the business visibility into Vercel's own infrastructure.
- Build cost attribution and chargeback tooling so spend can be accurately mapped to the parts of the business driving it, reducing reliance on third-party tools like Datadog.
- Partner with Backend and Platform teams to instrument services for compliance, auditing, and record-keeping requirements.
- Evaluate, integrate, and help operate observability infrastructure across our existing vendors and the CNCF ecosystem.
- Ship pragmatic, high-leverage visibility quickly that drives improvement in how we build, deploy, and operate our systems.
- Work closely with Backend and Platform engineers to scale observability infrastructure to the throughput and cardinality of Vercel's full production traffic.
About you:
- Proficient in TypeScript, with backend/infrastructure experience.
- Hands-on experience with Go, Rust, or Zig in production systems.
- Experience with distributed computing systems at scale.
- Experience with cloud infrastructure, including object storage.
- Familiarity with observability tooling and concepts (Datadog, Grafana, New Relic, Splunk, or CNCF-based stacks such as Prometheus-compatible backends).
Bonus if you:
- Have contributed to or worked closely with CNCF observability projects.
- Built, scaled, and improved internal developer platforms.
Benefits & Compensation:
- Competitive compensation package, including equity.
- Inclusive Healthcare Package.
- Learn and Grow - we provide mentorship and send you to events that help you build your network and skills.
- Flexible Time Off.
- We will provide you the gear you need to do your role, and a WFH budget for you to outfit your space as needed.
The San Francisco, CA base pay range for this role is $208,000-$312,000. Actual salary will be based on job-related skills, experience, and location. Compensation outside of San Francisco may be adjusted based on employee location. The total compensation package may include benefits, equity-based compensation, and eligibility for a company bonus or variable pay program depending on the role. Your recruiter can share more details during the hiring process.
Disclosures:
- Privacy: Please review our Job Applicant Privacy Policy for more information on how we handle your data.
- Equal Opportunity: Vercel is committed to fostering and empowering an inclusive community within our organization. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation, national origin, citizenship, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Vercel encourages everyone to apply for our available positions, even if they don't necessarily check every box on the job description.
What this role asks for
89% of this description is written for the role. The rest is Vercel's standard text, folded away below.
Read against Vercel's other open postings on this site.
The team: Engineering HIRES STEADILY
This role is one of 17 open in Engineering. 2 were posted in the last 30 days and the oldest in May: a team that hires all year rather than one being built.
WHAT THE TEAM WORKS WITH, ACROSS ITS POSTINGS
Vercel (17 of 17), JavaScript (14 of 17), TypeScript (13 of 17), Next.js (8 of 17), Golang (7 of 17), React (6 of 17), Terraform (5 of 17)
OTHER ROLES ON THIS TEAM
- Software Engineer, Scheduled Tasks posted Sep 24
- Engineering Manager, Dashboard posted Sep 22
- Software Engineer, Agentic Infrastructure posted Sep 17
- Software Engineering Intern - Winter '27 posted Sep 8
- Software Engineering Intern - Summer '27 posted Sep 8
- Software Engineer - Next.js posted Sep 2
- Engineering Manager - Next.js posted Aug 11
- DevRel Engineer, Agentic Infrastructure posted Jul 22
- Software Engineer, Compute posted Jul 14
- Software Engineer, CDN Content posted Jul 7
- Software Engineer, eve posted Jun 20
- Software Engineer, AI Gateway posted Feb 12
- Engineering Manager, CDN posted Nov 7
- Software Engineer, Backend posted Jan 28
- Software Engineer, Observability posted Jan 28
- Software Engineer, CDN posted May 28
From the team and dates on Vercel's own job board.
Salary context
10 other open postings titled Software Engineer, Platform state a salary: median USD 180,000 to USD 337,500 a year.
See Software Engineer salaries in San Francisco →
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